Articles from Contributor

South Africa’s local elections has given the world its first glimpse of Nelson Mandela since he was hospitalized in January. It is not a pretty picture. In this short video released by the South African government, a mass of election officials and other staff crowd an all but inert Mandela at his home in Johannesburg and explain – …

On the corner of Moi and Haile Selassie Avenues in downtown Nairobi, a small, grassy garden favored by office workers on a lunch break, where a takeaway stand sells quarter chickens for 120 Kenyan shillings ($1.40), marks the start of the war on terror. It was here, at 10.30am on August 7, 1998, that Osama bin Laden first made good on …

For the past week, South Africa has been gripped by a courtroom drama that, 17 years after the end of apartheid, exposes how wide the country’s racial divide can still be. Julius Malema, the enfant terrible of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), is on trial for hate speech because of his insistence on singing a protest song which …

Nigeria is in the midst of its cleanest election ever. Ironic, then, that it should also be one of its most violent – with hundreds dead in the run-up to this month’s vote, and scores more in its aftermath.

Opposition claims that the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan rigged the polls to ensure his overwhelmingly victory in the presidential …

As Britain counts down the days to the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, there comes a reminder from the tiny kingdom of Swaziland in southern Africa of how not to be a monarch. On Tuesday, Swazi King Mswati III, the last absolute sovereign in Africa, unleashed his security forces on pro-democracy demonstrators. Police …

Imagine being blind in Lagos. It is Africa’s megacity, an endless, dirty, malarial metropolis of somewhere between 10 and 17.5 million people – no one seems quite sure – a figure predicted to reach 25 million by 2015 and 35 million by 2025. It’s a place of constant gridlock and giant holes in the sidewalks. It is a nightmare to …

We step into the fetish priestess’s yard and, improbably, there is a clap of thunder, a sudden gust of wind slams doors and windows, and knocks over several plastic chairs – and the lights go out. My guide, Boat, and I are shown to two seats in front of the priestess, sitting on her porch in the dark. We are each handed a small glass …

Is Africa getting closer to taking military action to force out Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire? Perhaps. On Thursday, the legitimate ruler of the small West African nation, Alassane Ouattara, held talks with the Africa Union in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Rather than another attempt to forge a compromise between Ouattara and …

Two race scandals dominate the headlines in South Africa today, both of them concerning slurs against the colored community of the Western Cape, where I live. On Sunday, socialite Nomakula “Kuli” Roberts wrote a poorly conceived and dreadfully executed column about the characteristics supposedly shared by all colored women in her Bitch’s …

There’s been much speculation about whether Egyptian-style uprisings might spread south across the Sahara into Africa, particularly to the seat of the continent’s most notorious despot, Robert Mugabe. Mugabe’s regime has been particularly paranoid about the possibility, arresting 46 people for watching news reports of the rebellions in …

Why has Africa’s response to the Libyan regime’s shooting of protesters – and hiring of African mercenaries to actually pull the triggers – been so weak? So far, the continent’s reaction amounts to this: the African Union has condemned “the disproportionate use of force against civilians,” which pretty much implies that cracking down on …

South African Airways is once again scrambling to contain the damage after yet another crew member was arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling. Nonnie Nyoba, 44, who had worked for the airline for 12 years, was arrested in Sao Paulo on Feb. 15 as she prepared to board an SAA flight to South Africa after Brazilian customs officers seized …

﻿﻿﻿﻿Will North Africa’s tide of revolution sweep across the Sahara into southern Africa? It’s a question much on the mind of African analysts and, possibly, not a few African dictators. Consistent reports, and videos and photographs, have shown unidentified well-disciplined African soldiers patrolling the Libyan capital Tripoli. …